


my dear:

by Quecksilver_Eyes



Series: Narnia Musings [60]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, and does not recognise them anymore, and they come back as strangers with all the world settled atop them, in which Helen looks at her children, in which Helen sends her children away to save them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26796643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes
Summary: They come back with steel wrapped around their bones, their lives dusted like sugar from a hundred rations on their lips, and Susan’s words are a string of pearls around your neck. The world lies still and slow on Peter’s shoulders, and his knees do not buckle. Lucy sits nestled in a tree’s branches, and smiles at you with sharp, hollowed teeth. Edmund’s back is straight. There’s no sugar sticking to his fingers and no life like a chord on his tongue, anymore.Peter’s eyes are a storm.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie, Helen Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie & Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie
Series: Narnia Musings [60]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714795
Comments: 14
Kudos: 145





	my dear:

Here’s what happens, my dear, in the end:

You send your children away on a cold day heavy with English rain. Your hands tremble and their cheeks are wet or maybe just stained with all that they’re not told. You settle the whole world atop your eldest’s shoulders, with his eyes wide and his bones like glass.

Edmund is spitting all that falls from dark night skies back at your face, unflinching and with his words wound around his own throat, a little boy covered in scabs and all that you couldn’t keep from them.

You send them away. Susan’s hair is in perfect curls, her cheeks a red, blotched thing, and her words barely hold themselves up, strung between you. Lucy jumps into your arms and you kiss her nose as if she was still small enough to fit snugly in your palms.

They come back with steel wrapped around their bones, their lives dusted like sugar from a hundred rations on their lips, and Susan’s words are a string of pearls around your neck. The world lies still and slow on Peter’s shoulders, and his knees do not buckle. Lucy sits nestled in a tree’s branches, and smiles at you with sharp, hollowed teeth. Edmund’s back is straight. There’s no sugar sticking to his fingers and no life like a chord on his tongue, anymore.

Peter’s eyes are a storm.

Do you hug them, Helen, when you find them at the train station, wrapped around each other? Do you take Lucy in your arms, with her sharp hands and her canine teeth? Do you kiss Edmund’s forehead when he looks at you with gunmetal warped around him? What of Susan, and her porcelain smile, the earth stretched between your chest and hers? Do you cup Peter’s face, his trembling hands, or his glass-shard bones?

A question, my dear, for those times when you can’t sleep, when your children lie intertwined in Peter’s bed, when Lucy talks to the trees as if, one day, they will respond: How old is that storm in Peter’s eyes? How expensive is every pearl dripping from Susan’s lips? How often does your heart beat in between Edmund’s words and Lucy’s laughter? How many bruises on their knees? How many lives caught in their throats?

There’s strangers creeping through your house, Helen, and they have swallowed your children whole. There’s steel pooling at Susan’s hems and time stitched into Edmund’s seams. Somewhere, stretched across the canopy and the four cardinal points, your children dipped their tongues in silver.

You sent them away for their lives and the sugar sticking to their fingers, tagged and numbered with desperation. They came back with yellowed tags and something unspeakable settled underneath their skin. Do you know them, still? What can you tell me of your children, Helen, and their lives?


End file.
